"Southcote," said his companion, earnestly, "listen to me a moment. Life deludes no man. You are a self-devourer. You have deluded yourself; nay, take offence and, of course, I have done at once. I do not know the innocent mind of a young girl, very true; but I know that imagination is the very breath of youth--it must look forward, and it must dream--what is Hester to dream about, think you? not of the triumph of an examination, I suppose, nor of going in for honors; you have not even tried to kill the woman in her, and make her a scholar. The child is shamefully ignorant, Southcote. Why here's this feminine rubbish lying under my very feet--look here!" and he pulled up my mangled embroidery. "I should not be surprised now if it pleased your fancy to see her bending her pretty head over this stuff--what's she thinking of all this time, my friend? Nothing, eh? or only how to arrange the stitches, and make one little turn the same as another? I'll trust Hester for that." There was another pause, and there he stood turning over my work, and I not able to rush forward and snatch it out of his hand. My cheeks burned with shame and anger--how dared any man discuss my thoughts and fancies so! "Well, here is the real matter," said my father, slowly; "Edgar Southcote, it appears, is eighteen--two years older than my Hester, and old enough, he thinks, as he tells me, to decide upon the most important event of his life for himself--so he sends me a formal proposal for the hand of his cousin. My difficulty is not whether to accept the proposal--you understand that, Osborne--but whether, before giving it a peremptory and decided negative, I ought to make it known to Hester?" "I understand. Well now, waiving that principal difficulty, might one ask why this young man's very reasonable proposal should have such a peremptory negative?" said Mr. Osborne; "for my own part I do not see that this is at all a necessary conclusion." "I am afraid it must suffice that _I_ think it so," said my father, in his firmest and coldest tone. "On your high horse again, Southcote? Patience a little, now. Your brother Brian was not a strong-minded man--but a very good fellow for all that. What's your objection now to his son?" I almost trembled for this cool scrutinizing of my father's motives and opinions, which he never revealed to any one--yet I too listened with interest for the answer. No answer came. My father spoke hurriedly and with irritation; but he did not reply. "I presume you will permit us some little exercise of our own will as to the person whom we admit into our family," he said; "but enough of this. Do you advise me to tell Hester, or to dispose of the affair on my own responsibility?" Mr. Osborne seemed bent upon provoking my father's slumbering resentment.